End of the Sloth- Week 1

The first week of a health transformation is often the hardest, but at the same time the easiest. It is one of those conundrums where you are most excited about the changes to come, but still working on breaking some of those old habits that have slowed you up in the past.

Hybrid coaches Clint and Adam are one week down in our “challenge” and so far things are going pretty well for both us.

To clear the air- although we are bandying the dreaded T word around- the transformation is more looking at overhauling the bad habits and replacing them with better ones that are easily maintainable for much longer than just twelve weeks.

We have always said, and will stand by the notion that the “after the after” photo is much more important than just the twelve week picture.

Starting out however is always an interesting week. Like we said motivation is sky high and training at Hybrid has been top notch. Numbers are going up on the strength movements already, conditioning is seeing more rounds added and speaking for myself only, I’m already feeling great.

All of this is fantastic- but it’s week one. Maintaining the intensity across twelve weeks is where it starts to get really tricky. Today, I want to give you some information on what I believe to be the best way to approach the twelve weeks so that in thirty six weeks if I no longer look the same as I will at 12, it will only be because I have improved again.

I find with many people and by no means am I immune that when eager to start out we try to change absolutely EVERYTHING AT ONCE.

CHILL OUT AND THINK LONG TERM.

Here is an example for how I will be approaching the twelve weeks, keeping in mind it takes around two weeks for a new habit to start to become routine:

Week one: four resistance training sessions and one high intensity conditioning session

Week two: four resistance training sessions and one high intensity conditioning session + four litres of water per day.

Week three: four litres of water per day + four nights asleep by 10pm

Week four: four nights asleep by 10pm + 8-10 cups vegetables per day

Week five: 8-10 cups of vegetables per day + one walk per week

Rather than try and change everything all from the beginning, I have one week focussing on a new objective- be it training load, water consumption, sleep or vegetables.

Whereas doing everything in week one can be unbelievably challenging- I have broken food down into brackets so instead of “clean eating” week one- I will first work on water consumption which is easy enough and then add vegetables and then start looking at calories and macro nutrients.

Speaking to a friend he mentioned the term “Hurry Slowly” which is perfect for health- do it as fast as you need to, but don’t rush.